What will be the cost of Keir Starmer’s new medicines deal with Donald Trump? British lives |
Of Arthur Scargill it was said that he began each day with two newspapers. The miners’ leader read the Morning Star of course, but only after consulting the Financial Times. Why did a class warrior from Yorkshire accord such importance to the house journal of pinstriped Londoners? Before imbibing views, he told a journalist, he wanted “to get the facts”.
In that spirit, let us parse a deal just struck by the governments of Donald Trump and Keir Starmer. You may not have heard much about this agreement on medicine, but it is huge in both financial and political significance – and Downing Street could not be more proud.
A “world-beating deal,” boasts the science minister, Patrick Vallance. It “paves the way for the UK to become a global hub for life sciences,” claims the business secretary, Peter Kyle, with the government press release adding: “Tens of thousands of NHS patients will benefit.”
Presented with such triumph, His Majesty’s press is up on its hindlegs. “Happy pills” ran a laudatory editorial in the Times, while the Daily Mail sportingly thanked Donald Trump for his “US lifeline for UK pharma”.
Britain 1, America 0! Except that’s not the view from Washington. “A major win for American workers,” says the trade secretary, Howard Luttnick, which “ensures that the breakthroughs of tomorrow will be built, tested, and produced on American soil.” The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, acclaims “results that put Americans first”.
One deal, two diametrically opposed readings: who is right? The answer, I regret to inform you, is the Trumpettes. Take this headline from the liberals at the New York Times: “To avoid tariffs, UK agrees to Trump’s demand to pay more for drugs”.
Starmer and his team have not only been handed........